“The eagles are coming!”

Today I present Tolkein’s deus ex machina and definitely not a metaphor of divine grace swooping in to save souls from the fires of hell, the eagles of the Misty Mountains.

The smaller of the eagles is one of the survivors of the regrettable cull of my LotR collection and was drafted into my Wood Elf army for WFB, where it performed stirling service redirecting, march-blocking and generally annoying my opponents.

In fact, during 7th edition, eagles were so good at frustrating enemy movement and buying time and space to set up devastating flank attacks, that I thought I’d get another.

Although this one has the same pose as the original Gwahir model, it’s not the same size. However, for now I’ll be using this one as the King of the Eagles.

After WFB 8th edition made positional play, terrain and Wood Elves in general totally irrelevant, the Eagles went into hibernation until Kings of War allowed them to take to the skies again under the guise of a unit of Dracon Riders.

Again, they have done excellent work and have functioned effectively as part of my probably somewhat bent army.

However, my return to Middle-Earth has called them home. For the original eagle this has meant the fourth base of its existence and a heavier dry-brush to bring out more detail from the feathers.

‘Gwahir’ was given similar treatment but I’m not overly pleased with the white feathers. However this is mainly due t the fact that I’ve never been happy with them and have retouched them so much that some of the detail has been lost.

In game, the Misty Mountains is a separate army, but I’m not sure if I’ll expand it. Importantly, the eagles can ally with the Fellowship with no penalties, and so I am likely to experiment with putting an eagle or two with Aragon, Legolas and Gimli, justfor research purposes, obviously.

The eagles aren’t the only creatures of the wild that are being recalled to Middle-Earth from other games, however, the others are less than likely to be as noble as Gwahir’s clan.